The Hitch Hiker Killer | World's Most Evil Killers | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: 22nd of December, 1984, Roehampton, Southwest London, England. 29-year-old Deirdre Sainsbury had left her parent's home
in Sussex and was heading to Berkshire and the Greenham Common Peace Camp she called home.
ROGER NICKLIN: She was described by the family as a free spirit. If she needs to get from A to B, she would inevitably
do that by hitchhiking. NARRATOR: A car soon pulled over to offer Deirdre a ride.
The driver was a man called Colin Campbell. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There was nothing frightening about Campbell.
He just looked like your dad or your brother. NARRATOR: Looking like Mr. Ordinary
was what Campbell relied on. He was a predator, hunting for victims. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When he sees a woman out on her own
he sees that as an opportunity, an opportunity to go and take what he feels entitled to.
NARRATOR: Campbell was friendly and soon made it clear what he really wanted, but Deirdre
resisted his sexual advances. And he lost his temper, strangled her. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is somebody
who didn't just want to kill her, but wanted to completely obliterate her. ROGER NICKLIN: His response to that
was to make it look like the work of a madman so nobody would suspect it was me.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's the satisfaction of someone who has got a most incredible
thrill out of killing. NARRATOR: Colin Campbell was ruthless and manipulative. Killing Deirdre wasn't enough for him.
He wanted to destroy her because she was a woman. He didn't fear being caught. He'd got away with it before.
No one suspected this ordinary looking man was one of the world's most evil killers.
[theme music] NARRATOR: In August 1981, Colin Campbell was on the prowl. 17-year-old Claire Woolterton was walking home
in West London when Campbell drove past and offered her a ride. He was 20 years older than Claire,
married, and worked as a traveling salesman with a company car. He looked like a safe bet for a young woman
to accept his kind offer. She was wrong. Campbell was anything but. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There was nothing remarkable about him.
But there must have been something because as you look at his crimes you realize that there was a rage,
particularly against women, built into his character somewhere. NARRATOR: The following morning, 18 miles
from where she'd met Campbell, Claire's mutilated body was found naked on a riverbank in the town of Windsor.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When we look at how Claire was killed, she had a very deep wound to her throat
so her throat had been cut by her killer. And this was a very significant injury.
It was very clear what the killer's intention was, and that was to end her life.
This was no accident. NARRATOR: Despite exhaustive efforts by the police, there was nothing to connect Campbell to Claire's murder.
It was 1981 and DNA profiling was in its infancy. The forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene
and Claire's body revealed nothing. The case went cold and the files were put in storage.
Campbell had got away with murder. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: After he'd killed Claire and he thought he'd got away with it,
Campbell just returned back to his normal life. And we see this happening in quite a few cases of people
who commit multiple murder. They commit the most horrendous crimes and then the next day
they're back to their mundane reality, their routine. NARRATOR: Claire's family were left in a painful limbo
knowing her killer was still out there. It would be 32 years before they'd get any closure.
This killer's story begins on the 16th of September, 1947. Colin Frederick Campbell was born in India.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: We don't seem to know very much about Colin Campbell's background.
We know that he lived in India until he was nine because his father was in the British army over there,
but aside from that, there doesn't seem to be very much information about his childhood,
his upbringing, anything that might have had an impact on him. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So this is not a boy who's been furious with
the world, who is desperate to make his mark, who is in and out of juvenile court, in and out
of prison as a young man, .... No, none of that. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Looking at Campbell's relationship
with his mother, she seems to see him as a little angel who can do no wrong. She seems to be somebody who protects him
from the outside world, who kind of makes him immune to any consequences for his actions,
and I think that does go quite some way to making sense of the person that he is
and the way that he behaves. So I think that did have an impact on his relationship
with women, how he saw women. He saw women as there for him, to protect him, to do things for him.
NARRATOR: When his father's tour of duty was over the family returned from India to the UK.
By the age of 34, Campbell was married, working for an engineering company, and living with his wife in Hanwell, West London.
ROGER NICKLIN: I don't think he had any previous convictions. I don't think he'd come to the notice of the police at all.
He was working as a salesman. On the face of it, a respectable person. His next door neighbor, I recall,
was a serving police officer, and they did socialize, albeit only to a limited extent, but he
was a respectable citizen. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Campbell-- to an ordinary person, Campbell would be the neighbor that you were quite used to who
went about his business, was a traveling salesman, came in and out, dropped the car, walked round.
As far as anyone would know, Campbell was a perfectly ordinary guy. NARRATOR: Campbell suffered from epilepsy,
though not severely enough to prevent him from driving. He enjoyed sport and regularly played hockey.
He had no children, but appeared to be a happily married man. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Having a place within a family
means you've got a roof over your head, you get looked after, you get your meals cooked for you,
you get some of your needs met. So it's not surprising to me that we do see many murderers
living relatively normal lives because it provides that veneer of respectability.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I would love to have talked to his wife to find out what he was like in the privacy
of their house. It would have been fascinating, I think. ROGER NICKLIN: Because he was a salesman
and he had a company car, he was, to some extent, free to roam. You know, he obviously had an area that he had to cover,
but he would set off each day or whatever and could be doing almost anything and going almost anywhere.
NARRATOR: On the 27th of August, 1981, Campbell's life changed forever when he killed for the first time.
He was driving in Southwest London when he saw 17-year-old Claire Woolterton walking
along the Uxbridge road alone. PHILIP DEWEY: She was described as a hard working, precious
girl in the prime of her life. She was also described as having a great sense of humor
and sort of had the whole world in front of her. She's also described as sort of helping anyone who would ask
for help and was a great-- was popular with a lot of her friends. NARRATOR: Claire was in a relationship
with a married man, and she planned to see him that evening. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Claire makes it
seem to her mother and brother that she isn't going out that night. She's gonna stay at home.
She's done some ironing. Nothing untoward. But later, she slips out of the house to go and visit
the older married lover. But at some point in that meeting the couple have a row.
He says, I'll drive you home. She says, no. He says, yes, I will. PHILIP DEWEY: And obviously Claire
had been brought to the destination by this man, but following that argument she decided
to head back home on her own. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So she starts to walk back home to her home
in Northolt, not all that far. In other words, she's not hiking across London. She's comparatively small part of West London.
And then she has the misfortune-- and it is simply misfortune-- to encounter Colin Campbell.
NARRATOR: Campbell offered her a lift, and the next day Claire would be found dead by a commuter heading to Windsor and Eaton
railway station. PHILIP DEWEY: He was walking along Barry Avenue, adjacent with the River Thames, when he discovered
a young girl lying in the road. She was naked, had her throat cut. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Claire was out on her own,
and society, especially at this time, judged women for those things, putting themselves in these situations.
He knew about that, and that is something he would seize on. PHILIP DEWEY: Her mother woke the next day
to find Claire wasn't home. She turned the television, watched the news, and saw that a body had been discovered
in Windsor in Berkshire. She sort of had a feeling that something wasn't quite right and just thought
instantly that could be Claire. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Well, yes, unfortunately, it was.
She just had a dreadful misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's a tragedy.
She couldn't have known. She could not have known. And what's more, it was an entirely random attack.
Campbell did not know her, did not know Claire at all. Because without this cheerful young 17-year-old knowing it,
she falls into the hands of a man who can only be called a predator. NARRATOR: Colin Campbell was Mr. Ordinary,
a respectable, hardworking man. The perfect disguise. The police would be faced with a worst
case scenario, a random victim murdered by a stranger. Just after 6:00 in the morning on the 28th of August,
1981, the body of 17-year-old Claire Woolterton was found. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: After Campbell had killed Claire
and mutilated her body, he left it out in public to be discovered. She was on display, in a way.
And this was an incredibly deliberate part of the murder. He wants the body to be discovered.
He doesn't want to be caught, but he wants it to be acknowledged that this killing has taken place.
And he knows that he's responsible for it, so this is his way of displaying what he's done.
This is rage at women, and in particular, their sexuality. It's truly terrifying.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Colin Campbell didn't just kill Claire. He spent time with her body afterwards.
He mutilated her body. He slashed and stabbed at her private parts, her vagina. He went for the parts of her that were distinctly
female, distinctly feminine. So this tells us that Campbell has an underlying hatred of women.
He is a misogynist. It's also a way of saying that this victim is mine. I possess them.
I own them. I can do what I want with them. NARRATOR: Forensic analysis determined that Claire had not
been killed at the crime scene. Police had a lot of questions and no answers. Only her killer, Colin Campbell, knew the truth.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: How long did he keep her in the car? Where exactly did he commit the crime?
We're not sure. Was it committed in the car? I doubt it because her throat was cut from behind,
and that would be difficult to do if he was in the driving seat and she was in the passenger seat.
So A, where did he kill her? And B, where did he mutilate her? Where did he strip her naked?
NARRATOR: Claire's married boyfriend was questioned and released when he was found to have a solid alibi.
The police had few leads and very little forensic evidence. GEOFFREY WANSELL: A couple of ladies
come forward and say they might have seen a girl dragged into a car, but there's
no description of the car. There's no description of the number plate. There's no description of who might have been in it.
Nothing. NARRATOR: Claire's horrific murder was a high profile case that attracted national media attention,
yet the police had no other suspects. EDWARD JARMAN: In the early '80s, there wouldn't have been DNA profiling as we know it today.
Their sort of biological analysis would be limited mostly to hair examinations or blood grouping type tests.
PHILIP DEWEY: As part of this investigation, strips of tape was placed on the body to remove any potential debris
or evidence which might link her killer with the murder. EDWARD JARMAN: Effectively, it's just sections of adhesive tape
just applied systematically over the body or the items of clothing. So there were a series of tapings taken at the scene,
and then subsequently in the post mortem. BOB GREEN: Tapings have been common practice for many years,
doing fiber tapings, particularly in crimes like this where you suspect a close connection
between victim and suspect. NARRATOR: Analysis of the samples taken from Claire's
body at the time of her discovery revealed nothing, and the forensic exhibits were placed in storage.
PHILIP DEWEY: Despite all the investigations that had gone on into Claire's murder,
there had been no evidence to link anyone with the murder. A lot of work had gone into sort of like speaking
to witnesses, people who discovered the body in Windsor. There was nothing to link any individual,
and the case had to be put on ice for the time being. GEOFFREY WANSELL: You're looking at one
of the worst kind of cases. No connection to the victim, an entirely random attack, and the police, not surprisingly,
run out of leads. Doesn't mean they don't care about the case. I think they cared about the case a lot.
She was brutally attacked, savagely. But where do they go? They can do house to house, they can make appeals,
but who's gonna point the finger at Colin Campbell, a man who lives with his wife
and is a traveling salesman? Answer, nobody. NARRATOR: The police feared that Claire's sadistic killer
may never be caught. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The fact that Campbell was not caught for this murder really would
have increased his confidence. It would have given him a significant kind of sense
of, oh, I got away with this. I could potentially get away with it again. There are no consequences for his actions,
and this seems to be a bit of a continuity with Campbell in terms of actions and consequences.
So when he doesn't get caught for something, when he gets away with it, that just
emboldens him all the more. GEOFFREY WANSELL: And he goes back to conducting his life exactly as he conducted it before.
He's still a traveling salesman. He's still out and about. Does what he wants, comes and goes, back to his wife.
Nothing. Nothing to suggest that he's committed a crime or that he's suffering any kind of guilt or remorse.
Nothing. NARRATOR: For almost three years, Colin Campbell continued to hide in plain sight,
going about his daily routine. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: From the outside, Colin Campbell appeared to have a relatively normal life.
He has this veneer of respectability. He has a job. He's married. It looks like he's just your regular average guy.
But this is something we see very often in cases of people who go on to commit horrendous violence and murder.
They don't stand out. They're chameleons. They blend in to the background. NARRATOR: In 1984, there was a heated ban
the bomb debate over the arrival of American missiles in the UK. 29-year-old Deirdre Sainsbury was
a passionate anti-nuclear weapons campaigner. GEOFFREY WANSELL: The daughter of a very well known
British psychiatrist. She was idealistic. She believed that the world could change, and for the better.
And indeed, was so convinced that she joined what was then a burgeoning movement at Greenham
Common of women committed to saving the world from cruise missiles. It had been decided that this airfield, not far from Newberry
in Berkshire, would be the site for 96 cruise intercontinental ballistic missiles.
And the women of Greenham-- and they were all women-- camped there in protest. Indeed, the protest lasted for almost 20 years.
ROGER NICKLIN: She was described by the family as a free spirit If she needed to get from A to B,
she would inevitably do that by hitchhiking. She was a really experienced hitchhiker,
didn't really seem to have any fear of that, and had not ever in the past had any problems, as
far as I'm aware. So you know, she was her own woman and did what she thought was right.
NARRATOR: On Saturday, December 22, 1984, Colin Campbell had been playing hockey,
one of his favorite sports. After the game he was driving on the South Circular road in London near Roehampton.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Campbell is a killer who is predatory. He is quite good at sniffing out vulnerabilities
in other people. So when he sees a woman hitchhiking, when he sees a woman out on her own,
he sees that as an opportunity. An opportunity to go and take what he feels entitled to.
NARRATOR: Deirdre Sainsbury had been visiting her parents in Sussex and was hitchhiking back
to Greenham Common via London. A car stopped to pick her up. It was being driven by Colin Campbell.
He saw an opportunity, and before long, he'd killed again. Deirdre, his unfortunate victim.
ROGER NICKLIN: He'd picked her up and had made advances towards her, and she objected.
So he lost his temper and thought he'd strangled her. He wasn't sure that she was dead so he got her out of the car
and hit her with his hockey stick. NARRATOR: Realizing that he was running late and that his wife would wonder where he was,
Campbell drove home with Deirdre's dead body in the boot of his car. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He goes home and then he makes up
the most bizarre excuse. He's got blood on his jacket. He's got Deirdre Sainsbury's blood on his jacket,
and he makes the most ridiculous excuse about how he's broken his nose while he's playing hockey
and it's his blood on his jacket and he's gonna go and get an X-ray to make sure he's all right.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Campbell is a pathological liar. He's able to lie very easily because his main concern is
protecting himself, is preserving his freedom, preserving his ability to potentially do this again.
So lying is something that he doesn't struggle with because he doesn't feel bad about it.
He doesn't feel guilty when he misleads somebody or he says something that isn't really true.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: We do know that she wasn't sexually assaulted, but we also know that she was again mutilated just
as Claire had been mutilated. That same rage that came out in the killing of Claire Woolterton comes out in the killing
of Deirdre Sainsbury. She is something to be defiled, made to-- subjected to the worst indignities
imaginable to a woman. And all to satisfy Campbell's urges. But this time there is a slight difference
because this time he cuts off her left breast and takes it away. NARRATOR: In the early morning on 23rd December, 1984,
a woman out walking her dog in Denham Buckinghamshire saw what she thought was a tailor's dummy lying
by the side of the golf course. On closer inspection, she realized it was the naked body
of a young woman. It was my duty weekend, the weekend running up to Christmas 1984.
I think it was obviously apparent to the initial officers who attended that this was a murder.
The woman had quite significant head injuries so there were a number of other police personnel at the scene
when I got there. I think we very quickly came to the conclusion that she'd been murdered elsewhere
and the body had been dumped there. And bearing in mind, Denham Golf Course is one of the first areas of green
you come to when you leave London. The body was there, naked other than a pair of socks,
but the scene search didn't reveal anything of evidential value at all. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Well, the police, not surprisingly,
are struggling for leads. There is no obvious-- there's no boyfriend to be interviewed.
There's no angry lover. There's no one. I mean, what you literally have is a body.
ROGER NICKLIN: There were significant injuries to her head, including one at the time we thought,
that's a strange looking injury. It was sort of a curved shape on the side of her head
What we didn't realize initially until the pathologist arrived and we were able to look at the body more closely
were there were quite horrendous mutilation injuries that had been caused after death.
NARRATOR: There was no indication that she had been raped, but the sadistic killer
had sliced off her left breast. Officers searched the area, but there was no trace of it
at the crime scene. It doesn't need to be sexual contact or rape for a murder to be sexually motivated because this
is about possession. It's about control. Sometimes killers will achieve that through sexual assault
through the rape of their victims. Other times they will achieve it in alternative ways,
and I think here is an example of a case like this. NARRATOR: The police had no idea who the woman found
dead on the golf course was. In 1984, they had limited technology to work with. Identifying the victim could have been difficult.
Luckily for the investigation, many of the women peacefully protesting at Greenham Common
were on police file. GEOFFREY WANSELL: And so she's had her fingerprints taken, so it does not take the police any time at all to identify
her as Deirdre Sainsbury. Not that that helps them very much because there isn't a great string of suspects around her.
It simply says, well unfortunately, this is the victim. NARRATOR: Once Deirdre had been identified,
the police needed to trace her last movements. But first, her family were informed.
ROGER NICKLIN: When we traced Deirdre's parents living at an address in Sussex, they're both medical consultants,
and they were absolutely horrified that anything like this could happen to their daughter.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Imagine the impact that must have had on her family. This extraordinary and motiveless crime
against an entirely innocent, and indeed, bright, caring young woman. ROGER NICKLIN: She'd been to visit her parents
and she'd left Sussex intending to hitchhike her way back to Greenham Common. She was an experienced hitchhiker
and had been doing it for some years, and we thought that her route would have taken
her initially towards London. NARRATOR: An extensive investigation to find Deirdre's killer was launched.
It began in the roads around the golf course where she'd been found. ROGER NICKLIN: A social event for Christmas
was being held at some premises. Traffic on Saturday night had been far heavier than one would normally expect.
So very quickly when we started to trace people who'd been at the social event, we were
able to find several different witnesses who'd seen cars parked in the pull in where
the body had been found. The people passing the point where the body was discovered,
I can remember there was the headmaster of a school. There was a dustman and a range of people in between,
and I can't remember the exact number. There might have been somewhere between, I don't know,
half a dozen and a dozen different people who described seeing a car. The descriptions of the car were so vague
that we couldn't say we were looking for a Ford or a Volvo or whatever. It was just a dark colored car.
We blitzed the area as best we could with the description of Deirdre, her photograph,
and where she was making for. We did the usual house to house inquiries, not that there were many houses in the vicinity.
We spoke to those people who we could trace who'd used the lane at the time with the results
that I've just mentioned, but things were looking quite grim, to be honest. NARRATOR: During the 1980s, hitchhiking
was a common way to get around. After several high profile incidents, the media were warning young women of the dangers.
This was about to give the police the break they needed. ROGER NICKLIN: And then the phone rang
and it was a man who was aware of the publicity and called to say that he'd read an article
in a "Reader's Digest" about the dangers of hitchhiking. I had actually read the same article.
But he read the article and he saw this lady getting into a car on the South Circular road, and he thought,
I don't know. That might be dangerous. So he noted the registration number of the car.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The police could barely believe their luck. It's an extraordinary-- literally out of the blue.
This is not the marvelous police work. It's not CCTV footage being gone. It's simply a bolt from the blue.
NARRATOR: The number plate given to the police was registered to an engineering firm in West London.
ROGER NICKLIN: Inquiry there showed that it was used by Colin Campbell, one of their salesmen.
We discovered that he was attending a sales conference at Newberry, so a team went immediately to Newberry
to the hotel where this conference was taking place, interviewed him. Most dissatisfied with the explanations
that he gave, they found what they thought could have been a blood stained penknife in his car,
so he was arrested on suspicion of murder. NARRATOR: Hopeful that they had Deirdre's depraved killer
in custody, a team of investigators were sent to search Campbell's home. ROGER NICKLIN: And in the shed in the garden of his house,
they found some of Deirdre's belongings, most important one of which was her passport.
So there was no doubt that this was Deirdre. And the other thing was, when they interviewed his wife,
she said that he'd come home on the Saturday having been out to play hockey, and claimed--
because his clothing was extensively bloodstained-- that he'd been injured whilst playing hockey.
We had the car. We had Deirdre's passport. So he really had little room to wriggle with it all.
The evidence was there and it was overwhelming. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: But the fact that Campbell uses his own car,
a car that can be traced back to him through his work, just shows how brazen he is and it shows
how confident he is that he'll be able to get away with it. NARRATOR: Campbell knew the evidence
was stacked against him. He couldn't deny he was the killer, but he did have a plan to defend himself.
ROGER NICKLIN: I spoke briefly to Campbell. He was obviously interviewed, in detail, by members of the team.
But when I asked him why he'd mutilated the body, his response to that was to make it
look like the work of a mad man so nobody would suspect it was me. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Deirdre was beaten, she was strangled,
she was hit with a hockey stick. There was much more violence than necessary to end her life,
so this speaks to a real rage, a real anger in her killer. This is somebody who didn't just want to kill her,
but wanted to completely obliterate her. And I think this does tell us about Colin Campbell.
This tells us about his state of mind at the time. He knew exactly what he was doing,
but he was incredibly disproportionate in terms of what he was doing in her murder.
ROGER NICKLIN: His only excuse was he was an epileptic and he was tending to rely on the fact
that that's what caused it to happen without really being able to explain it in any way at all.
And when his mother came to see him, she clearly saw him as the victim, I think.
No real thought about Deirdre or her family or anything. Colin was in a situation that he didn't
deserve, that he shouldn't have been in, and the world was against him. NARRATOR: On the 24th July, 1985 at Reading Crown Court, Colin
Campbell was facing trial for the brutal murder of 29-year-old peace campaigner Deirdre Sainsbury.
Campbell was convinced he'd found a legal loophole to get away with murder. He never really denied it at any stage
because he didn't really have the opportunity to. It was his car. Deirdre's passport was in his shed.
The bloodstained clothing which his wife was able to tell us about. NARRATOR: Campbell was willing to plead guilty to manslaughter
on the grounds of diminished responsibility, claiming that the savage murder of Deirdre
was the result of an epileptic episode. He's managed to hold down a perfectly good job
for many years, conduct a perfectly ordinary life with a wife in spite of his epilepsy.
Why does his epilepsy suddenly drive him to kill Deirdre Sainsbury? Didn't make any sense.
It's a pathetic excuse, utterly pathetic. ROGER NICKLIN: He would like to have pleaded to manslaughter.
The prosecution wouldn't accept a plea to manslaughter, and insisted that he should be tried for murder.
NARRATOR: The trial lasted just three days, and Campbell was found guilty of the murder
of Deirdre Sainsbury. ROGER NICKLIN: I don't recall the jury being out very long,
and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. And I think we all thought that that was the right result.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Campbell's behavior in court was like something out of a made for television movie.
When he was convicted, he appeared unsteady on his feet and then he appeared to faint.
So, incredibly dramatic. And what he's trying to achieve here is a kind of poor me narrative.
Feel sorry for me. Isn't this terrible? Look at my suffering. GEOFFREY WANSELL: When the jury convict,
his mother shouts, you're cruel and ignorant at the jury. This is a man who's been presenting his entire life
as though he's nothing but ordinary, nothing but butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
ROGER NICKLIN: The attitude of Campbell's mother, it was very much that Colin was the victim.
He had a medical condition that put him where he was. It wasn't his fault, and nobody seemed to care for him.
There was no remorse shown as far as Deirdre is concerned. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And I think if that was the tone that
was set when he was really young, if that was what he was used to, just being able to get away with doing whatever he
wanted, then actually that's something that's been quite damaging in this case. NARRATOR: While serving his sentence,
Campbell continued to fight for a retrial, still blaming his actions on his epilepsy.
He was medically assessed at Broadmoor Hospital, and in 1999 he was granted the right
to take his case to the Court of Appeal, 15 years after the murder of Deirdre Sainsbury.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Campbell appeals it and he says that his epilepsy is a factor here,
and this lessened his culpability for the crime. And he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds
of diminished responsibility, and this was something that was accepted by the prosecution.
But this is a play on his skills, essentially, his manipulation, his ability to grasp for anything to save
his own skin, and it's just a shame that the system fell for it. NARRATOR: Campbell's sentenced remained unchanged,
but the lesser manslaughter charge meant he was a step closer to being eligible for parole.
PHILIP DEWEY: Following the downgrade in his conviction to manslaughter, Campbell remained in prison.
He'd been downgraded to a category D prisoner, which meant he was able to leave prison for five days a month
and spend time in the community before going back to custody. But obviously he was out and about with the public,
and compared to the life he had been living for decades, he had some kind of freedom back in his life.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: And that might well have been the way in which Campbell returned to society.
He's now a man in his 50s. He's clearly working his way towards freedom, at least freedom on license.
NARRATOR: There was a genuine possibility Campbell could be granted parole. The detectives who'd brought Campbell to justice,
however, were determined he shouldn't be released. ROGER NICKLIN: I was aware of an outstanding murder
in Thames Valley. I'd not been involved in it, but I knew about it, of a young girl by the name of Claire Woolterton who, again,
was from West London whose mutilated body was found by the side of the River Thames in Windsor.
It seemed to be quite close to the circumstances of Deirdre's death. We spoke to him about it and any other offenses,
and he didn't want to know. Just not interested at all. Officers from the Claire Woolterton inquiry
interviewed him as well, but didn't get anywhere with him. And we were unable to find any evidence at all
to relate him to Claire Woolterton or the area where she was last seen, or indeed, to Windsor.
NARRATOR: With no evidence to connect him to Claire's murder, there was nothing further police could charge him with.
Campbell believed he was on the home straight. What he didn't know was that a cold case
review had begun into the murder of Claire Woolterton. GEOFFREY WANSELL: To their eternal credit,
the detectives who originally investigated the murder of Claire Woolterton all those years ago in 1981
reopen the case, and they reopened the case in a very distinct way. They re-examine taping from the body of Claire.
So they take little DNA swabs on sellotape, almost, lifted them, and even more remarkably, they've kept them.
PHILIP DEWEY: By that time, the technology in DNA evidence and forensics had sort of progressed.
As a result of that, police forces from across the UK were looking into cases which had been unsolved
and looking at the DNA evidence. BOB GREEN: When a suspect is arrested for a recordable offense, their DNA is stored
on the national DNA database. If, at that time, a sample is not there to match against,
so if we don't have a victim sample, then, of course, that individual will not match against that case.
PHILIP DEWEY: In particular, they looked at Claire Woolterton's case and looked at the strips of tape which had been
taken from her body in 1981. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Now, there are many cases in which
the police lose evidence. It's discarded. It's just not there anymore. But someone was very, very careful
about Claire Woolterton. Perhaps it was the police involved specifically. But they were very careful because they wanted to know.
NARRATOR: The cold case review found two DNA profiles on the 30-year-old tapings,
one linked to Claire. PHILIP DEWEY: The other profile found on that piece of tape
was from an unknown male. When police ran that DNA profile through their database,
they discovered that it matched a profile for that of Colin Campbell, who was already serving
time in prison for the murder of Deirdre Sainsbury. EDWARD JARMAN: We subsequently received a reference sample
from Colin Campbell to do a more complete comparison of his reference DNA profile and the profile
we obtained from the table, and that's what established the initial link. NARRATOR: Further analysis of the DNA profile
found it to be a one in a billion times likely a match to Campbell. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think Campbell did believe that he
had gotten away with it, and he was quite surprised to see this come up again because at this point in time,
he'd been inside for a while. He'd made his way through the prison category system.
He was in an open prison. He was tantalizingly close to being released again. So I think he was incredibly angry to discover
that actually, there was a spanner in the works. NARRATOR: On the 14th of November,
2013 at Reading Crown Court, Campbell finally stood trial for the murder of Claire Woolterton.
He didn't take the stand in his defense. In an attempt to explain his DNA being found on Claire,
a video of an interview with the cold case review team was shown in court. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And all of this
is going to be incredibly grating when Claire's family eventually get to hear about it.
He knows that he has that knowledge about her. He knows how she died, and he is essentially
just playing with people at this point in time. NARRATOR: On the 3rd of December, 2013,
Colin Campbell was found guilty of the murder of Claire Woolterton. He's now in his 60s, in his mid 60s.
The judge makes it abundantly clear that he has to serve a minimum of 24 years in jail
for Claire's murder, this brutal attack, and says it's very unlikely that you will ever be released.
It's the equivalent of a whole life term. He knows perfectly well that by the time Campbell is 90,
he's very unlikely to be released from the prison system. PHILIP DEWEY: Come to spend all this time in prison
for the manslaughter of Deirdre Sainsbury while having this secret, knowing that he had done this
to another girl, that was quite exceptional, the fact that he had got away with it for so long
and knew about it. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I have no doubt that Campbell is a very dangerous man, and I do believe he would have gone on
to kill more women had he been released from prison, had he never been apprehended for Claire's murder
because he'd gotten away with murder. He'd learned from Deirdre's murder, and I think he was in quite a strong position
to do something else again. GEOFFREY WANSELL: 32 years after Claire's murder Campbell is convicted.
It's a remarkable piece of police work. One of the most remarkable in British legal history,
and for which the police deserve every possible commendation. NARRATOR: Colin Campbell was a vicious, callous killer
hiding behind a mask of respectability. He killed and maimed two young women to satisfy his own perversion.
When caught he refused to face his guilt, instead attempting to blame epilepsy for his actions.
Since 1981, Claire Woolterton's family had waited desperately for answers only one man could give.
That man chose not to relieve their pain, making Colin Campbell one of the world's most evil killers.
[theme music]

Season 7, Episode 4

Colin Campbell is predator and killer who is no stranger to the prison system. When he was able to get his murder conviction reduced to manslaughter, he thought that one day he’d be a free man. Until, police identified him as the culprit of a brutal murder that occurred decades earlier.

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Brief Summary

Colin Campbell murdered Deirdre Sainsbury and Claire Woolterton, evading capture for years before being convicted for both crimes.

Key points

The Ordinary Predator. Colin Campbell, a seemingly normal man, was a ruthless killer hiding in plain sight.
The Tragic Encounter. Claire Woolterton's chance meeting with Colin Campbell led to her brutal murder.
The Aftermath of Murder. Campbell's chilling indifference after killing Claire Woolterton reveals his predatory nature.
Deirdre's Last Ride. Deirdre Sainsbury's hitchhiking led her to Colin Campbell, resulting in her tragic death.
The Discovery of Deirdre. The body of Deirdre Sainsbury was found, revealing the brutality of her murder.
The Horrific Discovery. Deirdre Sainsbury's body is found with horrifying injuries, shocking investigators.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She had a very deep wound to her throat.

Description of Claire's murder.

3:13WatchJan 12, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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